


scars

by space_dev



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Brooke Lohst, Bisexual Jeremy Heere, Developing Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Jewish Brooke, Oneshot, Past Abuse, Scars, Short & Sweet, Trans Jeremy, puppy love is a wholesome ship why is there like 0 content for it??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 03:58:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15922412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/space_dev/pseuds/space_dev
Summary: Brooke didn't know what she was expecting when she answered the door, but it definitely wasn't Jeremy, standing there nervously with a large Tupperware container and a small bouquet of mixed wildflowers, just six and a half hours after that fateful date.





	scars

"I don't understand it. Did _I_ do something? Is she going through something at home?"

"Relax, Jeremy, you're overthinking this," Christine said, patting Jeremy's arm.

"The way she looked at me, I mean, she had disappointment and anger in her eyes. Murder, maybe."

"Murder, he says," Jenna commented, looking up briefly from her phone. "Kid, I'm sure it was just a misunderstanding. You're sure, though, that all you said was 'I love you,' right?"

"Positive, we were having a nice conversation and she was holding my hand as she drove and smiling the way she does, do you know how she smiles? I mean, you're both her friend, but I mean, the way she smiles when she's really happy and content, the little one, it's so pretty. And I kissed her, but she didn't kiss back, and then she looked at me that way and was silent the whole rest of the ride home, and I think she might've said something when she stopped at my place, but I booked it out of there because I thought I did something wrong."

"Maybe, Jenna, you could text her, ask her how the date went, so it's subtle, and she doesn't know we know what happened?" Christine suggested.

"On it," Jenna said, her eyes flickering back down to her screen, thumbs dancing across the bottom.

"Jeremy, I don't think you really did anything wrong, other than getting out of the car that fast and not listening what she had to say. Maybe she just wants to take things slow, after everything that happened," Christine continued, turning to the tall boy, who currently had his arms on the table and his head in them, cardigan off his skinny arms and covering his head.

Christine gently removed his cardigan from his head and draped the sleeves over his shoulders. Jeremy, for his part, sat up and scrubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands, the cardigan slipping off and falling on the floor, which Jenna scooped up quickly and set on the tabletop without taking her eyes off her phone. "She's typing, Jeremy."

Jeremy craned his neck around Christine, who was similarly glued to Jenna's iPhone, in it's overly sparkly purple case with several band stickers haphazardly stuck on, slightly easing the eye strain from looking at it too long. The screen, however, was dulled a bit, as always, because Jenna was on it for hours a day, and she didn't want to ruin her eyeballs.

The three dots continued to gray out again and again until finally, a long bubble of text appeared.

**Brooke: It was fun, until I was driving him home, and he looked at me and smiled that sweet smile - you know that smile? It's sooooo pretty ^-^ anyway he told me he loved me and it was really sweet, and I smiled when he kissed me but didn't close my eyes because driving, right???? but then I saw this long bluish scar on his back and....... my god.**

**I peered down the back of his shirt, which was FUn to do with him kissing me, and his entire BACK was covered in these wavy silver blue scars and I nearly threw up, and I just LOOKED at him like 'wtf man' and his face fell and I wanted to say something but like what do you say when you see something like that???????? So I stayed silent the rest of the ride and so did he but then I tried to explain when we got to his house but he booked it out without even saying goodbye but like does he KNOW i saw?????? or what????????**

"Jeremy Heere," Christine said firmly.

"Scars?" Jenna asked, her voice oddly small.

"The Squip... it used to shock me. Whenever I misbehaved," Jeremy explained softly.

Christine shook her head. "That's awful, Jeremy."

"Yeah. But, like, do you want me to reply to this or..." Jenna trailed off, unsure what to say. She had trouble with empathy, and she knew that, so she rested a hand on his shoulder.

"No. I'm going over to her place," Jeremy said, pulling on his cardigan as he stumbled off the park bench.

"How're you gonna get there?" Christine gasped, standing up after him.

Jeremy, who at this point had already walked off a bit, turned around and called out, "Bike! Same way I got here!"

"Stay safe!"

"Bring her flowers!"

* * *

 

Brooke didn't know what she was expecting when she answered the door, but it definitely wasn't Jeremy, standing there nervously with a large Tupperware container and a small bouquet of mixed wildflowers, just six and a half hours after that fateful date.

"Jeremy.." she sighed. She knew what was coming, and she sure didn't like it, but what can you do when your boyfriend shows up with flowers and 7-layer bean dip. "Is that dinner?"

"Yeah, kosher lasagna. Family recipe."

Make that lasagna, then.

"Here, come inside," Brooke said, opening the door much wider to allow Jeremy to step in, and further allowing her to shut the door behind the two of them and re-lock it.

"Here, the kitchen is this way," Brooke said quietly, barely loud enough to be heard, walking briskly past the foyer and living room to the kitchen.

Jeremy set the container on the counter and the flowers down next to it, clicked the lid off and then set in the microwave, punching the numbers and then the start button.

Brooke, for her part, had climbed up on the counter to retrieve a vase from the top cabinet, climbed down with it, and filled it partway with water from the sink, and was unwrapping the flowers and setting them in when the microwave started.

"Thank you, for this," she said quietly, taking the cellophane to the trash can. Extremely bad for the environment, but Jeremy didn't exactly have a flower garden in his backyard, so Walmart bouquets on sale it was.

"It's the least I can do," Jeremy answered, following Brooke to the living room, where she set the flowers on the coffee table and sat down on the old cracked leather sofa, tucking in her legs under her, resting one hand on her knee and becoming extremely interested in the palm of the other.

"Brooke," Jeremy chastised gently.

She looked up. "I know, I know. I'm sorry, about the date, I just-"

"No, I think I know why."

"The scars?" she asked, quickly. Too quickly.

He nodded. "I owe you an explanation."

"No offence, but, damn right you owe me an explanation!" Brooke cried, her energy swinging from quiet anime girl to keyed up and angry. "Is it your dad? Someone at school?"

"No, my dad's not done anything wrong, and it's not a bully. These are all kind of old."

"Well, then, who is it? Or, was it?"

"It was..." Jeremy trailed off painfully before continuing, "It was the SQUIP."

"The SQUIP?" Brooke asked uncertainly.

"Yeah. Whenever I did something it didn't like, it would... it would shock me. Didn't realise it'd left scars, or so many, or such big ones, until a doctor at the hospital, after the play, asked about them."

Brooke's gaze turned concerned and mournful as he explained, and she found herself flinging her arms around the skinny boy and hugging him with all her might. In the background, the microwave beeped once, twice, thrice, to let them know that the lasagna was done reheating, but they didn't care.

Jeremy wrapped his arms around Brooke, and hugged her back gently, and they stayed like that for a minute or two, before Brooke pulled back enough to give Jeremy a butterfly kiss on the nose before moving down to his lips, slightly chapped from the January cold, but warm all the same.

When they pulled away, Brooke found one of her arms was at the hem of Jeremy's shirt, a green Legend of Zelda tee, and she gently slipped a hand up the back of it.

"Is this okay?" she asked gently, pausing her hand's slow ascent at the small of Jeremy's back.

Jeremy nodded.

Brooke slid her hand up a little further, exploring the roughness of the scars and the occasional smooth, unmarred skin between them, the patterns of the scars as they snaked up and down and across his back, before beginning to rub small, mindless circles on his back, now ignoring the painfully painted patterns of the scar tissue.

Jeremy visibly relaxed as she began to do this, and took her other hand between both of his and taking in her gently concentrated expression as she worked at massaging his back, occasionally going too high and brushing against his half binder.

"Do they hurt, ever?" she asked, continuing her gentle rubbing motion a safe distance away from the fabric.

"Not usually, just some phantom pain occasionally, whenever I do something I know it wouldn't like, and they tense up and get sore whenever it rains, but otherwise, they're just kinda there. The binder doesn't hurt them, or make it worse, though."

Brooke hummed in understanding and continued at loosening away every bit of tension in Jeremy's back- though the thought of that made her feel like a hypnosis YouTuber- until she couldn't find a tense spot in his entire back.

"We should, like, eat," Brooke suggested, slipping her hand back out of his shirt.

Jeremy nodded. "Yeah. Probably have to heat it up again, though."

"That's okay."

**Author's Note:**

> definitely not partially inspired by this lovely duet : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ru9D4DhlNck


End file.
